The good news: I just had a four and a half day weekend. The bad news: I was sick the whole time. And now onto our regularly scheduled program…

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I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

Posted by Unpaid Intern on March 19 at 12:37 PM

Or, How I Plan to Kill Erica C. Barnett

By Stranger News Intern Jonah Spangenthal-Lee

Erica Barnett wrote a brief but meaty post the other day about the heart-stopping joy of bacon-wrapped, cheese-filled, battered and fried hot dogs. (Recipe, via Stuff Magazine, below the jump.)

I decided to call her bluff and see if she’d really eat such a bizarre concoction of unnatural ingredients. With 17 years of culinary experience under my belt and a fridge full of bacon, I dove headfirst into the dark world of lad-mag cookery.

The experiment in terror began with two dozen hot dogs. I hollowed out both ends for maximum cheese penetration. The recipe said to use an apple corer, but who the hell owns an apple corer? I used a rusty potato peeler.

The grossest part was feeling the hot dog get plumper as it filled with toothpaste-like generic “cheese.”

If syphilis was a food product, this is what it would look like.

The longest piece of bacon I have EVER seen. I’m not entirely convinced it came from a quadruped.

(Continued below)

A bacon wrapped present for Erica Barnett. Mmmm… SHINY!

My stove is only that dirty because of the spattering grease. I swear.

This is what a trans-fat looks like.

This is what was left in the pan after the first round of frying was over.

After finishing up the initial bacon-crisping process I decided to make this a two-day event, saving the pre-cooked dogs in the fridge to, umm, age. I planned to batter and re-fry them the following day.

DAY TWO: The dog-dip looks absolutely horrible but it feels much worse. The dogs tried to wriggle away to avoid their inevitable fate, but to no avail.

This is when the left side of my body started to go numb.

I am the world’s worst Jew.

I left the best part on the paper towel.

The deed was done: I threw everything into a tinfoil-lined casserole and drove like a maniac to get the bacon-cheez-beer-dogs to The Stranger offices in a condition approximating warmth.

I had to roll down my car window on the way over to keep the rendered pork fat smell from rendering me unconscious. On the elevator up to the office, a Fed Ex driver asked me what I was carrying. “It’s an experiment,” I told him.

Surprise!

Erica daintily gnaws on the object of her affection. She would later exclaim, “once you get the grease off, they’re not bad!”

That’s publisher Tim Keck on the left devouring his first artery-clogger of the day. By the end of the day, he had devoured four of them, even after they spent several hours on a table getting dirty looks from office vegetarians and dropping outside the safe temperature range for consumable food. I doubt he made it through the weekend. Josh Feit looks on in horror, Brad Steinbacher masters the fine art of aloofness and Dan Savage (slightly out of frame) voices his disgust.

Stranger News Editor Josh Feit “had two bites and gave up,” and the majority of the staff seemed afraid to get too close to the fried delights I had prepared for them, but there was at least one overwhelmingly positive response.

“It’s like a hot dog flavored donut!” exclaimed Kelly O, who seemed disturbingly wistful while she devoured the log of meat and cheese before referring to it as “Michigan caviar.”

I think we’ve found our new food editor.

Erica, who was only able to eat one of the horrid things, made a special request for corn-dog casserole on Friday.

Erica C. Barnett is like the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of culinary terrorism.

Instructions:
This one is a little work-intensive, so be ready to buckle down. First take the center out of the hot dog with an apple corer, if you have access to one. If not, just cut out the middle with a knife. Fill the cavity with the spray cheese and use the hot dog you removed from the middle as a cap to keep the cheese in. Wrap the bacon around the hot dog and deep-fry for two to four minutes or until bacon is cooked. Dab them dry with a paper towel (so the batter will stick). Mix the beer with the flour until it reaches a thick, but lump-free consistency. Dip the dogs in the batter, coating the dog completely, and deep-fry on high heat for two to three minutes or until brown and deadly.
NOTE: Don’t fry them too long or all of the cheese will explode out into the oil. That’s very bad.